Predicting Financial Risk Tolerance and Risk-Taking Behaviour: A Comparison of Questionnaires and Tests

Descriptive and correlational data for the knowledge, likelihood, and experience items

	Mean	S.D.	Barsky Corr.	H&L Corr.	Propensity Corr.
Casino Knowledge	4.13	2.63	0.11	0.10	0.26**
Gambling Likelihood	2.25	2.14	0.08	0.01	0.18**
Financial Decision Experience	5.70	2.22	0.16*	0.05	0.12*
Investing Knowledge	4.71	2.46	0.15*	0.17*	0.34**

Descriptive and correlational data for demographic items

	Mean	S.D.	Barsky Corr.	H&L Corr.	Propensity Corr.
Gender (1 = Male; 2 =Female)	1.60	0.49	-0.15	-0.15	-0.13
Age	25.94	6.48	0.06	0.05	-0.00
Personal Income	2.98	2.40	-0.01	0.01	0.04
Household Income	4.95	3.62	-0.06	0.03	0.08
Education	4.87	1.06	-0.04	-0.06	-0.00

Descriptive and correlational data for asset allocation items

	Mean	S.D.	Barsky Corr.	H&L Corr.	Propensity Corr.
Cash Assets	68.47	36.13	-0.01	-0.12	-0.23**
Fixed-Income	4.33	9.01	-0.05	0.01	0.07
Equities	16.99	27.58	0.01	0.08	0.20**
Business Ownership	2.53	9.90	0.01	-0.01	0.07
Real Estate	2.64	9.40	-0.03	-0.01	0.11
Hard Assets	5.07	13.39	0.05	0.05	0.14*

Estimates of risk-taking by risk tolerance score

Would You Like to Participate in the Game?	N	Barsky M SD S.E. Mean	H&L M SD S.E. Mean	Propensity M SD S.E. Mean
Yes	27	2.26 0.90 0.17	4.22 1.48 0.28	26.52 5.13 0.99
No	13	2.08 0.64 0.18	4.15 1.07 0.30	22.92 3.71 1.03
t Test		t38 = 0.65, p = .52	t38 = 0.15, p = .88	t38 = 2.26*, p = .03

Descriptive and correlational data for the risk rolerance measures

	Range	Mean	S.D.	Barsky Corr.	H&L Corr.	Propensity Corr.	Self-Rated Risk Tolerance Corr.	SCF Risk Item Corr.
Barsky	1 – 4	2.20	0.88	1.00
H&L	1 – 7	4.21	1.30	0.26**	1.00
Propensity	13 - 44	26.10	4.66	0.21**	0.28**	1.00
Self-Rated RT	1 – 10	4.11	2.19	0.18*	0.18**	0.42**	1.00
SCF Risk Item	1 – 4	1.58	0.50	0.17*	0.14	0.44**	0.44**	1.00

Predictions of risk-taking by risk tolerance score

	N	Barsky M SD S.E. Mean	H&L M SD S.E. Mean	Propensity M SD S.E. Mean
No Gamble	13	2.15 0.69 0.19	4.15 1.07 0.30	22.85 3.72 1.03
$US10 Gamble	8	2.25 0.89 0.31	4.00 1.85 0.65	23.88 4.82 1.71
$US20 Gamble	19	2.21 0.92 0.21	4.32 1.34 0.31	27.69 4.90 1.12
F Test		F37 = 0.04, p = .97	F37 = 0.30, p = .85	F37 = 4.94**, p = .01